


endings alone

by sanvitheartificer



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Agender Number Five, Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Neopronouns, One-Shot, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 15:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17942348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanvitheartificer/pseuds/sanvitheartificer
Summary: six stories of a five that did not go into the apocalypse alone.





	endings alone

1\. “Five! You can't go running out like – ” But Five is gone already.

 

“I'll go get em,” Luther promises, and sprints out the door. He grabs Five's arm just as ey makes the first jump.

 

“Get off me!” Ey yells, jumping again, again, trying to dislodge eir stupid sibling's arm, and the buildings change brownstone brick grand reopening sale friday special –

 

Desolation. 

 

“Five, what the hell did you do? We've got to get home!”

 

Five finally wrenches eir arm out of Luther's weakened grasp. “Fuck you,” ey spits, looking at the ruined landscape around em with wild eyes.

 

“We've got to go back,” Luther says again, quieter, staring at the ruins of familiar buildings, a street that just moments ago was busy, full of people.

 

“Fuck you,” Five repeats. Ey grabs Luther's arm, and nothing happens.

 

Five grabs Luther's arm, and there's nowhere to jump to.

 

 

{When they discover their family, Luther yells, and Five goes cold and silent.

 

They fight for years. Luther tries to order Five around, and Five thinks emself the one who should be giving orders, but they manage an uneasy kind of truce until the early arrival of the Handler, attracted by not one but two potential inductees.

 

Five is ready to join. Luther is not. He considers himself the moral sibling, the leader, Number One, a superhero. He can't be an assassin.

 

Five screams at him that he hasn't been a superhero in years, there's no one to save, no one to lead. Ey leaves with the handler, without Luther, and regrets it immensely in years to come.

 

Luther lives in the post-apocalypse alone for many years. He finds a mannequin and banks his emotional stability on it. One day, the Handler comes back.

 

The first time they end up on a mission together, Five jumps them both back to the past. Their relationship is rocky and they still fight all the time, but they know each other in a way the others find difficult to understand.}

 

 

7\. “You're going, then?” Vanya says.

 

“Klaus told you,” Five says, turning, resigned. At least it's just Vanya.

 

“Ben, but Klaus told him,” Vanya agrees, leaning against the doorframe.

 

“Was that all, or can I get on with the _fucking leaving_ already?” Five says.

 

Vanya goes to shake her head, but interrupts herself. “Take me with you. I – no one wants me here, anyway. Take me with you.”

 

Five looks at her very narrowly, and Vanya stares back at nym, solid for once in her life. “Alright,” ne relents. “Let's go.” Ne takes her arm, and at first they're both laughing, and the world blurs into cut-off sounds, honks shouts crickets wind wind shouts –

 

Silence –

 

“Where are we?” Vanya says.

 

“I – ,” Five tries to jump but can't, it's like there's a wall like the silence is boxing nym in,

 

“ _Where are we?_ ” Vanya yells, watching nym with rising panic.

 

Five shakes nis head. Ne doesn't have an answer.

 

 

{Vanya finds their siblings first. She collapses in on herself, looking very small, and Five listens to the space of the things she doesn't say.

 

Their quiet friendship of books and critiquing movies doesn't exist here, can't. In the absence of Diego's scorn or Allison and Luthers' high-and-mighty attitudes or Klaus being Klaus, what do they have to bond over? What do they have to say to each other?

 

Five snipes, lashes out, and Vanya shrinks, and doesn't listen past the buzzing in her head.

 

It takes them two days to discover Vanya's powers. She's not ordinary, after all, and the gap between them yawns ever more uncrossable. Vanya clears whole cities with the mournful sound of the wind, and the rubble in her wake is too familiar.

 

Five stops listening to her play violin.

 

When the Handler comes with her recruiting speech, Five says, “We're not going to listen to you tell us the apocalypse has to happen, so just leave!”

 

“Oh, no, dear child,” says the Handler. “We don't want _you_.”}

 

 

3\. “Did Luther tell you to come after me,” Five says, not looking at her.

 

Allison hesitates – yes, then – and then says, “Look, we've never been close but you can't just run out like that! It's lucky Luther was able to catch up!”

 

“I'm leaving.” Five shoulders past her, wrenches open the door.

 

“Five!”

 

Five is already meters away, breaking into a jog, and then Allison is catching up and she yells “Five, you can't do this! I – I heard a rumor that you took me with you!” and then zie slows to a stop and she grabs zir arm and they're jumping and jumping and it's not night anymore it's day morning evening evening night day morning day –

 

Day.

 

“Five, what did you do?” Allison breathes, staring at the destruction, the wreckage of the only place she has ever called home, glimpses a half-familiar face in the rubble and her breath catches and she demands, “Take us back! I heard a rumor that you took us back! Please, Five, take us back,” and she's crying, sobbing,

 

“Fuck you,” Five says, has never meant it so much, zie is panting wild-eyed not even together enough to yell at her for the rumor, the _rumors_ , but zie tries to jump again, can't, c a n ' t.

 

There's no way back.

 

 

{Allison tries to stay positive. Five screams at her. Zie thinks zir's better than her, can't understand how she could be so fucking idiotic as to think anything is okay after the literal end of the world, so pathetic as to cry the way she does.

 

Allison tells zir she heard a rumor that zie wouldn't yell at her. Allison needs to be listened to, and she doesn't give Five a choice.

 

Five runs the first chance zie gets. In an empty world, zie is almost impossible to find again. Allison tells herself, sometimes, that she hears the rumor that zie is coming back, but for the first time her lies remain lies.

 

Five doesn't mean to stay lost as long as zie does, but in an empty world, Allison is almost impossible to find again. When the Handler comes to zir, zie takes the offer, if zie can see Allison again.

 

She is haggard and quiet, when they come to her again, carting around a broken mannequin. She never hears any rumors, anymore.

 

She screams for the first time in years when Five jumps them back to the past. Being more than an assassin is more than she can bear.

 

But Five doesn't give her a choice.}

 

 

 

4\. “You're running, then?”

 

Five starts. “It's three in the morning; why the fuck are you out of bed?” xe says defensively.

 

Klaus snorts. “Smoking, dumbass.”

 

“Right, I'll leave you to the destruction of your body – ”

 

“Take me with you.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Can't I just want to go on a fun little trip through time with my favorite sibling?”

 

“Ben is your favorite.”

 

“Well – true. Second favorite. I wanna see the future, okay? Sounds chill. Better than here. Take me with you.”

 

Five hesitates, and Klaus pounces. “Please? I'll buy you extra marshmallows for your stash.”

 

Five snatches the cigarette out of Klaus's hand and grinds it beneath xyr boot. “Okay. You can come.” Xe grabs Klaus's arm, before xe can think better of it, and jumps and Klaus is laughing, exhilarated, and everything is speeding by and it's winter, winter, summer, fall, spring, winter, it's –

 

“Where is everything,” Klaus says, horrified, and Five tries to jump again, forward, back, anything, but xe can't, there's nothing xe can get a hold on. It's like running into a wall, like the familiar walls crumbled around them, it's like everything is g o n e.

 

 

{When the cigarette wears off, when they find their siblings, Klaus curls up into a ball and cries and screams and Five finds them a bottle of tequila and they down it all that night together and almost die.

 

After the apocalypse, there is nothing but ghosts. They spend more time looking for drugs than for food. They don't talk as much as they should. Klaus talks to their siblings, sometimes. Not often.

 

When the Handler makes them the offer, Five accepts for both of them before Klaus can say anything, to get them out, to get them away from the ghosts. Klaus follows, but they can't do this job for long. Five gets desperate enough to jump them back to the past much more quickly.

 

Neither of them know how to talk to each other, but neither of them know how to talk to anyone else, either. They fit poorly in the world. After so long living with ghosts, they are almost transparent, half spitfire snark and half nothing at all.}

 

 

6\. “Don't go,” Ben says.

 

Five startles in the doorway. Why is Ben always so fucking quiet? “What – why the fuck are you here, Ben?”

 

Ben doesn't sneak out like the rest of them. Kye didn't plan on Ben.

 

“Klaus said you were leaving.”

 

Five purses kyne lips. “And how did xe know, I wonder,” kye mutters. “Well, you're right, I'm leaving,” Five says, turning on kyne heel and walking away, but something massive seizes kyne shoulder and Ben cries out, yanked forward by his own half-formed instinct, and Five jumps, just wants to get away from the darkness and the crawling, unpleasant static of _so m e thi n g_ flickering into _through_ kyne shoulder and Five jumps and it's not dark it's light dark dark light it's – quiet.

 

“W-where are we,” Ben says, tentacles snaking back into his body, “Where are we, Five, take us back!”

 

Five reaches out, shaky, and takes Ben's hand, but it doesn't work, it do e s n't, the blue will not swallow the broken buildings and give them back, and then Ben is not Ben and Five cannot even jump away from the thrashing Horror that is kyne brother.

 

{Five watches Ben crying when they find their siblings, and feels numb, and feels alone. There is no space for kyne grief here. Kye hovers, awkwardly, and later that night when kye thinks Ben is asleep, kye cries, silently, brokenly.

 

They do not talk very much. Ben is quiet, has always been quiet, and all the things Five might say in another time, in another world, feel stilted and unreal after the apocalypse.

 

When the Handler comes, Five has already walked forward when kye realizes that Ben is not beside kyr.

 

“No,” Ben says. “I may be a horror, but I would rather be a horror in an empty world than kill again.”

 

Five is angry, Five is so fucking angry, incandescently, impossibly furious at their one opportunity to get away from this hellscape being yanked away –

 

“Go,” Ben says, soft.

 

Five goes.

 

When the others ask kyr where Ben is, Five gets very, very quiet.}

  
  
  


2\. Diego runs without thinking about it, a predator's instinct to chase.

 

“Fuck you, Five, you do _not_ get to be the first person to run away,” Diego yells, and grabs Five's arm, and ze snaps “Get off me!” and jumps and suddenly they're somewhere else, and Diego is trying to wrestle hir to the ground but Five's always been a slippery bastard and ze jumps again and the scenery speeds past as they tussle on a changing street, clouds rain sun slush slush snow sun –

 

Dust. Rocks. Rubble.

 

“What the fuck, Five, where are we? I-is this some k-kind of j-j-j,” Diego says, but his voice falters. There's nothing about this that's possible. There's nothing about this that looks like a joke.

 

“Get off me,” Five says again. But hir voice is weaker, too. Ze tries to jump again before Diego has a chance to do anything.

 

Nothing happens.

 

“Five,” Diego says, scared, and Five _tries_ and _nothing happens._

 

There's no running from this.

 

 

{When they find their siblings, _Mom_ , Diego cries, and then Five cries, too, sobs. They weren't particularly close before, but in this moment, they both cry harder than they ever have before.

 

They fight, but they also hold each other together. Five makes plans to escape, writes equations in the margins of books that don't make Diego go tight and tense.

 

When the Handler arrives, they don't talk about it. They look at each other and nod. They need this opportunity.

 

They are both very good at being killers. They don't talk about it.

 

They are not sent on jobs together often. One of them is deadly enough. This job seems simple, suspiciously simple, but Five flashes the symbol Diego has been waiting for for years and he trusts his sibling with his whole heart.

 

They jump, they _return_ , and their siblings do not know how to parse this partnership. But they're both tired of running. They find ways to hold on to each other.}

  
  


  
  


5\. Dad doesn't think they can do it, but fuck him, Dad never thinks they can do anything. Five jumps and it's easy, it's like space travel but with more of a zing, and they're grinning, exhilarated, they speed past endless, changing people, jump, jump, jumpjumpjump –

 

{Five is alone. Five has Dolores. Five is the master of their own fate; isn't this what they wanted, all those many years with their stupid fucking siblings never shutting up?

 

Five finds Vanya's biography and reads it cover to cover in one night.

 

Five is alone. Five has always, always, always been alone.}

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked it please comment or kudos! <3


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